With the death of the Void Talon, the immediate siege of High Ionosphere Sector Seven collapsed.
The leftover sixteen bio-pods, deprived of their command frigate’s guiding tracking data, scattered like panicked midges. Four burned up in the upper mesosphere. That left streaks of brief, green fire across the night sky of the Asian landmass. The leftover twelve were systematically hunted down and boiled away by Aegis-One’s restored railgun batteries and Pip’s high-sky solar strikes.
Two hours later, Arthur stood in the clean, high-pressure air of Aegis-One’s main briefing theater.
His tactical rig had been stripped down for upkeep. His inner tunic smelled faintly of antiseptic and drying sweat. On the steel deck beside his boots, Grimm lay fast asleep, his heavy black paws twitching as he chased spectral void parasites through his dreams. Pip was perched atop the light-projected projector housing, carefully grooming his covert feathers with his curved beak, sometimes pausing to glare at Toby, who was eating a ham sandwich five feet away.
Titus was back in his heavy cradle, slowly munching through a fresh tub of hydroponic butterhead lettuce that the station crew had gratefully delivered from their emergency rations. The crunch of his beak was the only sound in the room.
